Comments on: Forum http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com ADOPTIVE PARENT SUPPORT & CARE ORDERS Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:15:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Alison http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-301 Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:15:11 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-301 Hello Mary
I can relate to this fully having gone through what sounds very alike. I have recently found this site and would be happy to talk to you, if this can be organised through Claire? I can totally relate to the feelings you have described. Very warm wishes :-)

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]]> By: Poppy http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-276 Wed, 22 Jul 2015 16:46:14 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-276 We have recently been through a similar experience with disruption during intros. Heartbreaking and very hard to see a way to move on.

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]]> By: NB http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-263 Tue, 07 Jul 2015 12:59:29 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-263 Eleanor
I feel the same. We had to make the heartbreaking decision that things just weren’t working with our little boy. He was placed with us for 16 months & we had problems from the start. I felt I wasn’t listened to by social services, just very much left to get on with it. Time & time again we told them that we couldn’t go on, we love him & wanted him so badly, that we carried on trying & trying to make it work. In hindsight, I don’t think we should’ve, they just kept telling us it would get better-actually it got worse. He left us 5 months ago, the house is so quiet, our marriage is a mess. We had a disruption meeting, but frankly, what a waste of time. I thought we’d get answers as to why we didn’t get the help & support that we asked for & desperately needed-nothing, the social workers just sat there stoney faced, with the independent reviewer just asking us details of the adoption process from start to finish. No support, nothing. We’re left to try to pick up the pieces, missing our boy every day, just not missing his behaviour-they let him down. If his issues had been dealt with, we would’ve had that hope, that optimism to carry on-but we were given nothing. Since leaving us, we learn he has a full time T/A at his school & his foster carer is going on a 10 wk attachment course. We were given no help with school & went on a 4 hr attachment course-it’s beyond me.

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]]> By: ABC http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-232 Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:29:03 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-232 Hi ladies, just want to say you are definitely not alone and feel free to contact me any time via email [email protected] and I will always get back to you. The more volunteers we have means we can all help each other through this very difficult time. I totally understand where you are coming from. and thanks for your very kind comments – much appreciated, Please take care, Claire

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]]> By: Mary http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-231 Thu, 11 Jun 2015 18:14:40 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-231 Thanks fran. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without Claire and this amazing website she has built. Adoptive child has now left and it too feels like they have died. We left the room the same and I couldn’t even thinking of going in there. Unless you have been through this you have no idea how hard it is and the devastation the disruption can cause. Thank you for you post and to Claire as well. X

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]]> By: Eleanor Finlay http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-218 Sun, 31 May 2015 20:05:32 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-218 We had our little boy for 4 years before making the hardest decision of our lives, to put him back into foster care as we could not cope any longer. Social services arranged meetings 6 weeks apart but we’re not listening to what we were trying to tell them. Eventually there was no other way to say it than to come right out with it and say he couldn’t live with us any longer. They said they suspected this but never actually acted on it. He has now been gone for just over 6 months. The house is so quiet and everything in his bedroom is as it was when he left. We have recently found out he us moving to hopefully a long term foster carer. No disruption meeting. Nothing. I feel the system has let him down badly and want to shout out that social work are not getting it right for my son. We have been told we can make a complaint but don’t think there is any point. I miss him every single day x

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]]> By: Frances http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-179 Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:05:40 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-179 Hi Mary

We went through something very similar a few months ago to what your going through just now. I would be happy to try help in anyway I can. Unfortunately I’m out for the rest of today, but I could reply later this evening if you were to email me. Claire may be able to put you in touch with someone who has experience of a disruption in your area.

Hang in there, Fran.

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]]> By: Mary http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-178 Tue, 21 Apr 2015 11:53:46 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-178 We are looking for advice and support, which we can’t find anywhere. We are eight weeks into placement and have finally decided that we can no longer go ahead. We have a bc who has additional needs and although we anticipated some disruption not this amount. Bc is really struggling. We have mentioned this a few times to social services and yet they just said things will improve but they have no experience with bc’s disability. We raised an issue of adoptive child’s behaviour towards the end of intros and they were dismissed. Things have got a lot worse. If it wasn’t for dh I think I would have walked in front of a bus. Dh has been saying for weeks that it isn’t working and we need to put the needs of both children before our desire to have another child. But I kept saying I could cope, I could make it work. Well last night I finally admitted I can’t and I can’t go on like this. Hopefully we are meeting with social services this week to drop the bombshell. I feel physically sick, I don’t know what to say to them. I confided in my health visitor and she said to be aware that they will try and get you to keep going.

Has anyone been through this, can anyone offer any advice. I feel like part of me is dying but also thankful that it is coming to an end.

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]]> By: Grieving mum http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-114 Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:37:50 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-114 I have done so. Thank you.

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]]> By: ABC http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-112 Thu, 26 Mar 2015 11:19:25 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-112 Hi there do you want to email me – [email protected]
so I can get back to you privately, Claire

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]]> By: Grieving mum http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-109 Wed, 25 Mar 2015 06:45:43 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-109 My husband and I adopted 2 brothers (full siblings) 10 years ago.
The eldest (aged 14) is on conditional police bail (no direct or indirect contact with husband and I) and in foster care currently under a section 20.
Our youngest son (aged 12) has never been apart from his brother. Now he’s saying he never wants his brother home. It appears his brother had threatened him with a choice…. move into care with him or be an only child with us and never see his brother again. This was the most serious threat made in the week leading up to him being arrested. There were plenty more mind games leaving our youngest scared and confused.
Our eldest, we’ll call him S, has requested a visit to do an activity with our youngest, A, who responded in horror that S would try to manipulate him to join him in care.
The past 5 weeks have been like a living bereavement. None of us are sleeping well. Where there was a professionals support network, all has moved to support S making us feel isolated.
We are considering disrupting the adoption with S to safeguard the 3 of us at home from any further damage, both physical & psychological. The past 4 years have been like walking on eggshells as S suffers various mental health difficulties. A has asked us very clearly to do “the legal thing” so S can’t come back. However because they have always been together, could A be taken too?
We have spoken to our wider families & close friends who have responded very positively. … all saying we just couldn’t have done more to love and support S.
Any advice you can give us will be much appreciated.
Thanks in anticipation.

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]]> By: Francine http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-104 Sat, 21 Mar 2015 18:42:44 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-104 Breakdowns can occur late in the relationship. Our daughter came to us when she was a week short of her fifth birthday and the adoption order was granted when she was six. She was a beautiful if hyperactive child who struggled in main steam education. We were told originally that she had been accessed as having above average intelligence ( clearly as time went on not the case). We received no help with schooling and after 12 months put her in a private school. We did then have limited support from an Ed Psychologist. She did ok in main stream secondary school never rocking too many boats but was increasingly difficult at home, stealing serious amounts of money from us and other people and as she turned 16 becoming more and more promiscuous. She got sacked from her Saturday job at a supermarket for stealing. She had a complex genetic condition which resulted in her having to have her colon removed when she was 18. We loved her and helped her recover but she met a young man not when she was 19 and quickly moved in with him becoming pregnant within a few weeks. She totally rejected us, even reporting us to police for harassment when we tried to phone her. She had 2 children in 11 months (now 4 and 3) but has no involvement with us. I expressed concerns to Social Services about her ability to cope with two young children which resulted in them informing her I had “reported her”. At one point however her children were taken into care although we believe she has got them back.
The pain for us is that after years of love and care we have lost our daughter and have no grandchildren (she was our only child), and of course it is too late to start again. However we do foster a great 12 year old boy but lack the courage to consider adopting him.
We now know we were not given anything like enough information and indeed misled over her ability and potential. We recently met someone who had worked at the nursery where my daughter went before we met her. She is a very experienced care worker and manager and she said we must have struggled to get her thorough main stream education and we should have received better information. Certainly had we had the true information we may have not taken up the placement.

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]]> By: ABC http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-102 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 15:55:13 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-102 thank you for your amazing courage to share this story, would you please email me [email protected] so I can speak to you personally. thank you Claire Patterson

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]]> By: Weemoodrazz http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-101 Fri, 20 Mar 2015 09:01:41 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-101 Hi Claire

I just wanted to say how appreciative we are of this site. We went through a rather complex disruption only a few months ago. We took on two sibling boys, one 6 years old and the other nearly 3. The boys although full siblings had never lived together. They had been in FC for over 2 and a half years and each had lived with their different foster families for all that time. No one (social services included) had any idea how the boys would manage coming together to live with new parents. In hindsight we were so stupid to have taken on the boys, there was too little information on how the boys functioned as brothers, the information that did exist was out of date, including a sibling assessment that had been undertaken when the youngest boy had been only 1 years old.

3 months into placement and with life having become a living nightmare we realised that we simply couldn’t go on as we were. Serious and escalating physical, verbal, and emotional abuse of our younger boy by his older sibling, coupled with very significant behaviours displayed by the older boy, who was very unhappy and wished to return to his foster family, resulted in us social services we couldn’t go on with our older boy living with us. We had bonded really well with our youngest son and told social services that we wished to continue his placement with us, and to go on to adopt him.

What transpired after the day we bared our souls to our social workers has left us picking up the pieces of our lives and trying to move forward. Initially we were told we would have to wait at least another 3 months as we were living so that a sibling assessment could be undertaken. When we expressed that we simply couldn’t go on, we had to live with the threat that our youngest boy would be removed from our care as the boys came as a ‘package’. We stuck to our guns in the knowledge that we knew we were doing what was right for both the boys and for us as a couple. We believed absolutely that the boys shouldn’t be in placement together. The experiences of neglect and abuse that our older boy had from over 3 years of living in his birth home left him with significant needs that required a 1:1 setting to even start to address. Both boys had developmental delay and our younger boy also had substantial needs, neither boys needs could be met as long as they existed together in a placement. Our younger boy represented a trauma trigger to our older on, and we had to watch as this poor boy unravelled before our eyes, hyper vigilant and hyper anxious constantly around his younger brother.

A month after we told social services finally a decision was made to separate the boys, thankfully the youngest boy was to remain with us. Up until the point that this decision was made we were made to feel almost ‘criminal’ by social services, accused of being too negative, not giving it enough time, and even of being a ‘concern’ to some as to our capacity to parent at all, we felt the worst we ever had in our entire lives.

We were very much ‘informed’ adopters, not nieve as to the issues that children in care may have. We had friends who had adopted, I read well over 50+ texts relating to trauma, adoption and attachment. I had joined Adoption UK as a prospective adopter and we attended a 5 day training course in our LA. We were seen by our LA as the ‘poster couple’ for adoption and above all we had been very open and honest about what we felt we could cope with in regard to children in care. Yet, despite all this we still felt stigmatised, forgotten and ignored to a certain extent by social services as soon as we told them we needed to disrupt.

Our story at least ended in the best possible outcome for all concerned. Our oldest boy returned to his previous foster family and to the people whom he very much saw as his parents. They plan to permanently foster him. He is happy and beginning to thrive again in their home in a 1:1 environment. The youngest boy remained with us, I’m very proud to report that he is such a happy and content little boy, and is thriving, almost having completely overcome his previous significant developmental delay.

What if we hadn’t stuck to our guns? If we had gone along with social services, adopted both boys and condemned us all to what would have been a fairly miserable and unhappy life. Neither boy would ever have had the opportunity to develop to their full potential, and both would have been fraught with issues, and possible mental illness as a result of a situation that was falling so short of meeting their needs. As for our marriage, could it have survived the unhappiness, exhaustion and secondary trauma of living as a family of 4.

It’s by making the tortuous and soul destroying process of a disruption ‘public’ so that all can see the real truths behind the heartbreaking decisions that some have to make, that we reduce the stigma and silence surrounding this side of adoption. We have to live every day with other peoples ‘views and opinions’ of our decision. Yes I have experienced people who have been so insensitive as to tell me that I’ve destroyed two brothers lives and split apart two boys who ‘deserved’ to be together. Their are social workers who tut and derisory assert that we simply gave up too soon. Perhaps if any producers who intend to make ‘real life’ documentaries about adoption in the future, finally choose to include this very ‘real’ aspect of the whole process, prospective adopters could be said to have been ‘fully’ informed as to the real truths about adoption.

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]]> By: Kelly http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-98 Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:17:11 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-98 Hi Claire
We’ve been very lucky in the adoption story we have had so far with a 2 year old. But I wanted to say that I was so sad to read your story, and today to read another article in the Mail. I think you are both phenomenally brave women to share your stories and to help to try to find help for others. What you have been through is heart breaking and I have nothing but respect for you. I am so sad that you and those little ones have had these experiences. If we were all good parents from the start, these poor children would never be affected. For women like you to then come forward to offer to parent them is, I believe, the ultimate expression of the word Love. Well done for your bravery and honesty. This is a fantastic website. Best wishes to you x

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]]> By: Siobhan http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-93 Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:31 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-93 Happened to me as single adopter. After successful adoption of girl age 7 applied for adoption of older brother age 10. Disaster. Physical violence , anger, disillusionment. A lovely boy however with deep-seated psychological issues with no CAHMS support at time of placement. My support group crumbled as my siblings couldn’t grasp what I had done in disrupting the adoption and told me not to live anywhere near them. Depression. Loss of career. Mortgage. Home. Physical health deteriorated. The impact of adoption disruption has been devastating and long lasting. A few good friends rallied round and my daughter is thriving – still a challenge but lovely. Never did I imagine the loss of career or living on benefits. Thank you for alerting others to the plight of disruption – not to mention the impact on the children.

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]]> By: MANDY http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-89 Mon, 16 Mar 2015 12:38:28 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-89 This website is an invaluable tool… My husband and I went through a disruption two years ago – I only wish this website was created then as we felt very alone at the time. It is so reassuring to know that we are not the only ones to go through this nightmare. I would like to reiterate Alison’s point regarding the judgement from ‘friends’ – most of which I will have a guess at, have never put themselves forward to go through the adoption process – as you say “Walk a mile in my shoes” .. I am glad you are starting to rebuild your life Alison… From personal experience, it is so difficult to know where to start again after the trauma of a disruption so I’m happy that you are getting there. Again, I would like to say what an amazing idea this website is – I feel, this morning when I found it, like I have been thrown a lifeline… Thank you.

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]]> By: Minna http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Tue, 10 Mar 2015 21:45:02 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-68 Claire, thank you so much for setting this up, it’s badly needed. Last summer, when my adoption disrupted after just seven weeks, I found myself isolated and absolutely desperate for someone who knew what I was going through. The best I could find was Julie Selwyn’s report Beyond The Adoption Order, which wasn’t completely relevant to me but contained anecdotal wisdom and others’ experiences that made me feel less alone. I read it obsessively.
What happened was sheer hell, devastating for us both, and I feared for a long time that I’d never feel sane again. I know all about the guilt, shame, grief and confusion Alison talks about, above. Now, thank goodness, I am starting to emerge from it, and although I have no right to news of ‘my’ little girl I hear unofficially she is doing well. I tuck her away now, I think about her so often but privately. She’s part of my landscape, always will be, but I’m coming to terms with the loss of her and of motherhood.
I would like to offer my help to others going through this experience.

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]]> By: Alison http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-59 Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:55:20 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-59 I had a adoption disrupt a couple of years ago after seven weeks. I suffered very bad post adoption depression which made me reject the child. It was hell, I cannot express the feelings I had but they included massive guilt, shame, great sadness and total confusion as to why the adoption didn’t work. My family and adoption agency were great, but some of my friends were not and made massive incorrect judgements. As they say unless you have walked in someone else’s footsteps you have no idea what somebody else’s life is like. For a long time I couldn’t deal with impact on the child, it is only through lots of tears, counselling and time that I have finally started putting my life back together and started to feel happy again. Only recently I have found out that the child is now doing well which has eased some of the feelings I had. I found it every hard to deal with though cos there was no information anywhere, so this website is great.

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]]> By: Deb http://adoptiondisruptionuk.com/forum/comment-page-1/#comment-47 Tue, 10 Mar 2015 13:29:39 +0000 https://adoptiondisruptionuk.wordpress.com/?page_id=10#comment-47 My close friend had to distrupt adoption plans a few years ago, 12 weeks after having the children home. Of course the first thought were towards the children but I cannot stress the dreadful impact this had on my friend and her husband. Social services offered no support and I know that they felt completely alone, not knowing where to turn. This site will be of such important support for the parents of a distrupted adoption.

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